Democracy Moves On

We have seen how democracy developed in England over seven hundred years. We have seen how it transferred to England’s North American colonies without significant change. We have also seen how the concepts of Liberty and Independence became intermingled and confused.
As a result of that confusion both sides in the American Revolution imagined that they were fighting to protect democracy and liberty—while, in fact, both sides were engaged in what was basically a territorial dispute. The issue was never liberty. The only real question was whether one side could act INDEPENDENTLY of the other.
It was a struggle for economic and territorial dominance. After it was over, both sides continued on their separate but similar democratic course—that probably wouldn’t have changed much no matter which side won.
When it came to establishing their own government, Americans (British at heart) sensibly dropped their brief flirtation with the French Enlightenment (which had neither understanding of nor experience with democracy in any form). The Americans reverted to their conservative English selves and wrote a Constitution embodying Britain’s long experience with democracy.
We are a product of English Enlightenment, and it is a very different thing from the uninformed speculations of Voltaire and Rousseau.
Our experience with democracy mirrors British experience in one significant and tragic way. Both England and America found themselves confronted with a political issue that could not be settled at the ballot box. Both nations found it necessary to resort to force.
The British issue was the power of the king—the question of Absolutism. The American issue was slavery. Both showed a glaring weakness of democracy. When there is an issue that cannot be settled by voting—the loser will not accept the result, then democracy cannot work.
Whether the issue is tribal (Iraq, Afghanistan, Rwanda, Kenya), religious (17the Century England), moral (Nineteenth Century America), democracy always bows to the superior argumentative force of sheer violence. Trial by ballot can ONLY work where consensus is possible.
That takes discipline; it requires a rationality that transcends ancient (or modern—look what happened when the Serbs finally took their vengeance on the pro-Hitler Bosnians) calls for vengeance. It only seems to work in relatively homogeneous societies. One could argue that it requires a few centuries of practice.
This is a very real and valid concern as both England and America become more diverse. Will democracy hold together when “minorities” with very different views of how life should be lived become numerical equals at the polling place, or even become a majority?
Everyone likes the economic prospects of life in America—excluding the glitches we are experiencing now. (We’ve had worse in the 1890s and the 1930s.) But we are taking in millions who have no experience and, in some cases, very little liking for a democratic form of government.
Increasingly we’re seeing issues (abortion for one, same sex marriage for another) where the proponents will not accept what the voters are saying. They appeal to the courts. What does that remind us of?
Go back to the 1850s. The Dred Scott Case settled the question of the morality of slavery for all time by declaring that the Negro was not human. Within four years American were dying in battle by the thousand to reverse that case. That’s a worrisome precedent.
In the 1950s, Brown vs. Board of Education forced school integration at any cost down the throats of millions of unhappy Americans. Vast tracts of large American cities—that were then middle class neighborhoods—are today empty lots, boarded up stores, and run down shanties. Most of my former neighborhoods are unsafe for anyone to walk through after dark. The erstwhile white inhabitants voted with their feet, courts be hanged. Even the loudest proponents of equality in education and work often live in predominantly white suburbs today.
However your sympathies may lie in either of these two cases, they showed that courts cannot overrule popular will. They cannot even overrule a popular vote, however immoral or incorrect. Neither can Congress. There is always the danger that one or another side will give up on the ballot completely. It has happened before.
Diversity is upon us; it is irreversible. It offers strengths and advantages of its own. But the marriage between diversity and democracy must be consummated with great care.
“Gentlemen,” Benjamin Franklin said at the end of the Constitutional Convention, “you have a Republic —if you can keep it.” It is something that needs to be proven, over and over again. Democracy, uniquely among governmental forms, requires a lot of hard work—on the part of the governed!
There are storm clouds. It doesn’t help that every time I walk into a public school, I see posters that glorify the Declaration of INDEPENDENCE (not democracy or liberty) as the foundation of our rights and government. It we raise an entire generation to believe that—that government is only about my rights and how to get them—nothing about my responsibilities and duties—then I would suggest that over the long pull democracy has no hope of surviving.
It will certainly not continue in the form that Parliament (in 1642) fought for and James Madison (1787) strove for. Some—perhaps a majority—may not care. Democracy has been pitched out before—Russia in 1917 and 2001; France in 1799, 1852, and 1871; Italy in 1922; Germany in 1933; China in 1949; Cuba in 1959 and so forth.
The causes were economics, terrorism in the streets and ethnic diversity. Democracy has not faced the threats it faces now in Britain and America since the reign of Charles I or James II.
Let’s stop worrying about imposing it on people who aren’t comfortable with it. Let’s ask ourselves some hard questions about what we want here at home. Al Qaeda won’t end democracy here. If it fails, it will not be destroyed by alien beliefs—it will be destroyed by us failing to hold on to our own principles—bought with so many centuries of blood and struggle. By us failing even to understand what those principles might be.
As Walt Kelly’s “Pogo” said forty years ago, “We have met the enemy—and he is us.”